Machines are available for producing leads used in various electrical or electronic products or equipment. These machines take insulated wire, strip off insulation from one or both ends thereof (the stripped off insulation being referred to in the art as a "slug"), crimp a terminal on to the exposed wire after stripping off the slug, and cut off the wire, thereby producing a finished lead with a terminal.
The wire runs through a typical machine at approximately 200 inches per second and at an acceleration of approximately 2,000 inches per second squared.
The reservoir of insulated wire running through the machine is contained in a barrel or reel. Typically, a barrel may be 36 inches in diameter, 40 inches high, and contain around 5 miles of wire. Because of this length, the barreled wire may include several splices; and at the high running speeds and relatively-small wire diameters, it is difficult if not impossible for the machine operator to visually detect a splice in time to shut off the machine. These splices interfere with the precision tooling within the machine and may cause severe damage thereto.
Moreover, the barreled wire may run out, or the wire may break, so that no wire is being fed into the machine while the machine is running. In the absence of wire, the cut-and-strip blades for producing the slugs will close on a terminal or a splice and damage the blades. A splice could also jam up a feed tube, damaging the tube.
As a result of wire runout or splices, the tooling is damaged, complete shutdown and replacement of the tooling is necessary, and valuable production is lost.